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• Gov. Tom Corbett, who had championed the law, said he was leaning against an appeal of the decision, which was widely viewed to favor Obama in Pennsylvania, one of the nation's biggest electoral college prizes. Obama has been leading in recent polls over Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
• The law could still take full effect next year, although Simpson could also decide to issue a permanent injunction.
• ___

• NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- In a Newark courtroom this week, 12 jurors and a packed gallery will hear how four college-bound friends gathered at a schoolyard one summer night to drink sodas and listen to music, their young lives full of promise and potential.
• Then they'll hear about the aftermath, the carnage that followed: Three of the four friends slumped against a wall where they'd been forced to kneel, pools of blood surrounding their bodies; deep slash marks from a machete crisscrossing one victim's head and face.
• Six suspects were arrested within two weeks of the murders. Three have been convicted at trial with the help of testimony from the survivor, who has earned a college degree since the attacks. Two other defendants have pleaded guilty.
• Opening statements are expected Thursday morning in the trial of Gerardo Gomez, who turned 15 on the night of the slayings but is being tried as an adult, as were two other juveniles.
• In the more than five years since Shalga Hightower lost her daughter, Iofemi, in the brutal slayings in this violence-scarred city, she and the other victims' families have doggedly sat through three lengthy trials as well as hearings, guilty pleas and sentencings almost too numerous to count.
• ___

• ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Rather than spraying champagne in every direction, the defending World Series champions talked about holding a subdued party if they squeezed into the postseason.
• When it finally happened, the St. Louis Cardinals just couldn't help themselves.

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